1. Introduction
A 20-member multinational boy group from SM Entertainment, which debuted on April 9, 2016. In fact, all members rarely participate in one song, and activities are centered on individual sub-groups and NCTU.
2. Group name
NCT stands for 'Neo Culture Technology'. It is also an abbreviation for SM Entertainment's new technology "New Culture Technology." It also said that the name was given in the hope that "n(many) + City (city)", that is, NCT in cities around the world.
3. System
1) Infinite opening, infinite expansion
NCT is free to recruit new members without restrictions on the number of members (unlimited opening) and continues to expand to the world (unlimited expansion), creating teams based on each region in each city around the world. NCT 127 is the first regional-based team based in South Korea, and WayV based in China debuted in 2019. And in 2023, it announced that it would end its infinite expansion with the debut of NCT-Tokyo, a Japanese-based company.
2) Unit System
Within NCT, there are regional-based teams that act as fixed members and coalition teams that have variable and free member composition as mentioned above. NCT DREAM, which debuted as a combined team at the time of its debut, became virtually a fixed team, and NCT U became the only combined team of NCT. In NCTU, U stands for "United," and the biggest feature is that the combination of members is different every time because each song combines members suitable for the song. It is one of the core concepts of the NCT system that shows the infinite possibilities and diversity of NCT through flexible member composition and activity methods, and shows various genres and styles because the member composition and musical concept are different every time.And in the first half of 2023, an article was released that NCT Do Jae Jung will officially debut as the first unit with fixed members
4. Concept
Based on the debut song "The Seventh Sense," the most surprising thing about the existing SM fandom and the outside world was that it released a cloud lab-style genre. Although the promotional material explained that it was Future Base, SM's debut song of trap and cloud rap sound, which are the most popular genres released by numerous rappers on the mainland, starting with Kohold Crew in the domestic hip-hop scene, Kiss Ape and OKION, suggests the direction of NCT's activities.As a unit called NCTU, not all NCT members, SM, which has planning power at the level of market dominance such as thorough concept setting and group direction, would not have chosen "The Seventh Sense" as its debut song without thinking. In particular, it is convincing that it has brought hip-hop sounds and trends in music and differentiation strategies from the existing company's senior companies.Since SM's second generation, rap has been pointed out as a weakness, and NCT's concept is interesting because it has been given less weight. However, the proportion of rap has become too large without proper platform setting, causing various problems. In particular, in the case of NCT 127, a small number of rapper positions monopolized more than 80% of the song, failing to distribute parts, forcing the proportion of many vocal members to be reduced and the parts to disappear. As a result, it is pointed out that while the title song is mainly rap, the melody and hook are relatively weak, making the song minor and hardly securing popularity. As the distribution of parts is also abnormal, fans' dissatisfaction with group activities has also increased, hindering the fandom's sense of belonging and unity.NCT DREAM is a youth coalition team that initially took on the concept by appealing the image of a "young brother in pajamas." The target group was clear, but there was quite a bit of rejection because it highlighted the image of being too young for the original age. Since 2018, the concept has changed to more casual, which has the disadvantage of not being much differentiated from the existing male dance group concept. In addition, under the concept of a youth alliance team, internal strife continued in the fandom due to the system in which members graduate when they become adults. On April 14, 2020, the graduation system will be reorganized to carry out activities under the team name of NCT DREAM and seven members, including Mark, an existing graduation member.WayV, which debuted based on China, follows the official routine of popular K-pop songs in most title songs, including melody lines and composition. In addition, the number of seven members, the appropriate combination of vocal/rap/dance parts, and the fast-remembered hook are the official levels of success of the KPOP boy group. Like other sub-groups of NCT, it provides high-quality songs and stages, but it is relatively "less neo" compared to various experimental attempts by NCT 127, NCT U, and NCT DREAM. Paradoxically, SM is still creating the most popular K-POP style music among sub-groups in NCT, given that it is a representative group that has been released in China, a major promotion target, based on its success in the Korean market.Overall, concept plagiarism is particularly frequent. Even in China, they are almost regular, brazenly openly copied. In the case of the "NCT 2018 Yearbook" video, the entire concept in the video was plagiarized by the Chinese version of Produce Creation 101.
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